Streetwise: Food truck to fill the former Maria's space on Broadway

Green Bay Press-Gazette business reporter Jeff Bollier, aka Streetwise, wants to hear from you with news on new businesses, openings, closings, expansions and improvements. You can contact him at jbollier@gannett.com. March 14, 2018.
Jeff Bollier/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

GREEN BAY - A restaurant space with high visibility will go from enchiladas to egg rolls this summer.

Streetwise always hears the third time is the charm, but that didn't prove to be the case for Maria's Mexican Restaurant, 106 S. Broadway. Owner Hilda Aguilar-Tapia and her son, Daniel Fraire, tried to revive the business in a spot it occupied from the mid-1990s to 2007 and then again for a two-month period in spring 2009.

Aguilar-Tapia and Fraire did their best to re-create the same menu and ambiance longtime Green Bay diners will remember, but could not keep it going.

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A little more than 18 months after it opened on Broadway, Maria's Mexican Restaurant has closed.(Photo: Jeff Bollier/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

The highly visible yet parking-challenged restaurant space at the corner of Broadway and West Walnut Street has previously been home to Cheves & Grill, which lived there from December 2016 to May 2017, and before that the popular Red restaurant, the Burger Co., and two other stints for Maria's.

The space won't stay vacant for long, though.

In early May, Egg Roll Plus Food Truck posted signs on the building and a note on its Facebook page indicating it was leasing the space and would make the leap to running a full restaurant and bar.

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A sign on the door indicates Egg Roll Plus Food Truck plans to open a restaurant and bar in the Broadway District space formerly home to Maria's Mexican Restaurant.(Photo: Jeff Bollier/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

The early word is mid-June, but we'll see how much time it takes to get the space set up.

On Broadway Inc. Executive Director Brian Johnson welcomed Egg Roll Plus Food Truck to the district and said its interest in making the leap to a brick-and-mortar location is a good sign.

"The space presents a great opportunity for mobile food restaurants interested in taking that next step," Johnson said. "They've built a following that's enthusiastic about their product and are taking advantage of the opportunity to grow and evolve."

Johnson noted food trucks growing into brick-and-mortar locations is a thing in bigger cities. He said Broadway wants to be the district where food trucks look to make such transitions, calling such moves "a feather in the district's cap."

"Broadway continues to fly under the radar in terms of the number of restaurants we have here," Johnson said. "This might be 18 restaurants in the district that offer a variety of restaurants. It's important for us to have food that's ethnically diverse."

Streetwise is Press-Gazette reporter Jeff Bollier. Contact Jeff with tips and ideas at (920) 431-8387 or jbollier@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @GBstreetwise.